For all the griping, Houston drivers use tolls

Work to add toll lanes to Texas 249 is expected to start later this year, fulfilling long-discussed plans. ( Nick de la Torre / Houston Chronicle )a lot of people who balk at paying tolls for a lot of reasons. For some, they can be pricey. And paying to use a road next to a perfectly good, albeit crowded, road can also turn some people off.

Some Houston area drivers don’t like tolls, and for many reasons. Some just don’t think it is necessary to pay to use a road next to a perfectly good, albeit crowded, free road. Some balk at what they consider the government charging for something — safe, efficient roads — that they believe we should get for simply paying taxes.

Meanwhile, many others are plunking down the money, increasing toll revenues for the Harris County Toll Road Authority to about $520 million last fiscal year. That’s a lot of $2 trips.

More are on the way, as Sunday’s story suggests via a look at the agency’s building plans for the coming year. Work is supposed to start soon on the Tomball Tollway, and engineering studies are being prepared to replace the Ship Channel Bridge.

In addition, the toll authority is still buying property to extend the Hardy Toll Road into downtown Houston, widening the southern segments of the Sam Houston Tollway and working with the Texas Department of Transportation to widen U.S. 290 northwest of Loop 610.

Planners are betting the other way, however. Given that the state is still working out its transportation funding challenges, toll roads are about the only expansion happening these days in the urban areas where it’s needed most.

Do you plan to jump into the pay lane, or staying free?

Will you use toll lanes more or less in the coming years?

More. As congestion increases, it's a better option.

About the same. Building bigger isn't going to change my driving habits.

Less. Hopefully, if more people use them, congestion won't be as bad and I'll stay in the free lanes.

12 Responses

No to new toll roads. The toll road survey is ridiculous. You are putting words into peoples mouths. You need to ask whether more roads is a solution at all. The reality is that with more people in the area there is an urgent need for more mass transportation where the concrete footprint is less and more people can be moved more efficiently. When will the people understand more roads mean more pollution, flooding, and less space for living?

While I think that the root of the problem lies somewhere at the state level, and someone should really look into whether or not TxDOT is being funded properly, I look at tolls as a necessary evil to get the roads built. However, as I understand it, there was a bit of deception involved when Beltway 8 was put in years ago in that the people were told that once the road was paid for, the tolls would be removed. Quite the opposite has happened. In my opinion, the problem is that we have a quasi-government agency called the Harris Country Tollroad Authority that in no way, shape, or form is going to give up its lifeblood of tolls. This agency, like any good government agency, will continue to grow itself any way it can. They argue that they need to continue to collect tolls to maintain the road and fund other projects. Why are the drivers on one road paying for other projects? If it were simply a matter of paying for maintenance, the tolls would drop to a very low amount. Have we ever seen tolls drop in Harris county? Heck no, they continue to go up and up. If the roads were given back to the state, county, and or city governments after they were paid for, I’d be in full support. To continue to grow the HCTRA I think is a mistake. How many times over has Beltway 8 been paid for?

I used to brag to my non-Texan friends that “We don’t put up with toll roads here in Texas.” That was the good old days when Texas had the best highway infostructure in the the nation, and it was properly funded. We can and should properly fund the Texas highways, and get away from this toll road mentality. It discriminates against us less prosperous folks, blocks access to businesses, and generally makes me as a Texan angry. What’s wrong about adjusting the highway gasoline tax?; that makes a lot more sense that more stupid toll roads.

Toll roads are a disgrace. We pay taxes to build roads and then pay tolls to drive on them. State officials brag about no new taxes but these tolls are actually very high and regressive taxes. Who oversees how this toll money is spent. Who profits from toll roads? Certainly not the working people who pay up tp $8 a day to get to work. I wish someone would investigate this travesty.

As long as there are decent service lanes right next to the toll lanes when ever possible I’ll continue to use them. A big problem with the toll roads besides making your wallet lighter eveytime you use them is that once people pay and get on them they think speed limits don’t apply to them. Enforcement is almost non existant on these roads.

Thanks to the Republican /Tea Party mindset that all government is bad government we have a mess in funding just about everything useful in this state, schools, roads, healthcare, you name it. Thanks Rick and friends you jerks.

Don’t know what toll roads you drive on, but Harris County and the Constables love patrolling the Sam Houston. I’m on probation now for a speed trap near the ship channel. The limit there is 50 mph yet NO ONE drives that slow. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

-”How many times have we paid for Beltway 8″.
The yearly financial reports of the HCTRA are on their website. If you read the report, you’ll see there is about $15 million still left to pay on the original Sam Houston Tollway. As I’ll expand on below, the HCTRA’s funds have been used to build other projects that are not tolled. They also pay for County expenses like pensions and healthcare. Their bond investments fund education programs at your kid’s school and other public benefit programs. Sure, they could have paid off Beltway 8/Sam Houston Tollway. Great. Now where are you going to get funding for new roads from? Raising the gasoline tax? Good luck a) finding a politician willing to propose such a thing as raising taxes in THIS political climate and b) somehow getting that through our legislature. LOL

-”What’s wrong with adjusting the highway gasoline tax?”
As I said above, there isn’t a politician in Texas stupid enough to commit political suicide by proposing raising taxes. Keep putting in Tea Party “patriots”, this is what you get. Efficient and fast transportation is one of the biggest ROI’s for an economy. You have to spend money to make money. You can argue all you want about spending money on Obamacare/Medicaid, etc… but spending money on infrastructure WORKS and makes our economy and, therefore, our lives better. It’s common sense, which is why no one will actually vote for it.

-”We pay taxes to build roads and then pay tolls to drive on them.”

No. You don’t pay taxes on it. Not a dime from your taxes goes to ANY toll road. If you’re referring to the managed lanes on I-10 and the ones coming to 290 after the expansion, you’re still wrong. Your taxes paid for the free mainlanes, not the managed lanes. Actually, the partnership with HCTRA to add the managed/tolled lanes a) moved the project forward by decades and b) will take more people OFF the free mainlanes, thereby benefiting you. For free.

I don’t mind the tollways. What I do mind is the price. Compared to other toll roads I’ve ridden, HCTRA charges a lot of money and puts up toll plazas close together. I mean popping you for a buck forty every five miles? Ridiculous.

So what are we getting? Fewer manned toll plazas and more EZ-Tag only exits. Shouldn’t this cost LESS?

Toll roads are built and maintained from a different set funds from regular highways. The toll road authorites primarily raise their construction costs by issuing bonds. Toll roads are an effective means of getting new urban highways, where the fed’s are reluctant to provide funding. Toll roads are treated more like a busines, the quicker they’re built, the quicker the note begins to be paid off. Have you noticed the pace in which non-toll roads are built at?

Would the Sam Houston, Westpark and Fort Bend toll raods have been built if they weren’t tolled? Imagine Houston without having the added loops of the Sam Houston and the future Grand Parkway.

It is time to stop building toll roads. Houston and the surrounding suburbs have become too big to continue this way. We need to send the the officials of the Toll Road Authority on a real road trip to city’s that use their funding to provide transportation systems that allow for a growth and relieve the strain on the environment. It is called Mass Transit. They need to visit Chicago, New York, DC, Denver, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, Miami, and Cleveland to name a few cities that provide some form of rail system to facilitate mobility in their cities. There are entire countries that survive and thrive with the use of railway mass transit systems that are efficient and a joy to use. They need to invest the “hundreds of millions of dollars” that you quote on a transit system that benefits the mass population in an effective way and relieves the stress on our environment by reducing emissions and relieving traffic congestion. The hundreds of millions of dollars that is slated for adding, widening, and repairing toll lanes should be put to use in converting the toll lanes into a mass transit system. The space is already there, it should be put to use in improving traffic and making traveling across our city and state a way to benefit more people, especially those without a car or who cannot drive a vehicle for various reasons. We need to encourage a future of progress instead of a future of constant repair. The officials of the Toll Authority have a vested interest in keeping us shackled to an antiquated mass transit system because it affects their employment, paycheck, and BONUSES. Lets put all that money towards a mass transit system that addresses the future instead.

I hate paying tolls. Tolls are nothing more than a racket by the HCTA. I would love to drive to work and home one day and it not cost me $10.50 to use a public road. Gas prices are extremely high and when I can’t move around Houston without having to pay tolls my take home pay is seriously affected. We pay taxes on land, schools, for roads, public transit, and yet even when I use my own vehicle I have to pay the city to use the roads. HCTA should be disestablished and everyone of the decision makers fired. They are liars. We are free citizens yet we can’t drive our own cars on our own roads in the city we live without paying the city to do so.